Deluxe Kit Manual F1177Rev E.2 - 3dcartstores.comstore-musclewires-com.3dcartstores.com/assets/images... · 2017-02-02 · Deluxe Kit This kit is designed to introduce those interested

Deluxe Kit This kit is designed to introduce those interested to the uses of Flexinol® actuator wire. This unusual material contracts like muscle fiber when electrically driven. Electricity heats the inside of the wire much like it does a light bulb. This in turn causes the Flexinol® actuator wire to restructure its internal molecular and crystalline forms into shorter ones, effectively making the wires contract or get shorter while exerting considerable force for its size. Flexinol® actuator wire has many thousands of uses and is either in use already or is in the process of development in many fields. When used properly it is smaller, lighter, easier, and cheaper to use than motors or solenoids. This kit contains some Flexinol® actuator wire and a few sample applications showing basic implementation. However, using it properly can be difficult. Even when one has successful operation of the material, someone else may find a better design soon after. As your product evolves into a real development keep this portion of your design easy by working with our experts to advance through the counterintuitive nature of this technology. This will help keep your resources free to focus on other features of your product. We offer a great deal of design assistance and strongly encourage customers to take full advantage of it. If you have any questions, need additional information or want to order more products, please contact:

DYNALLOY, Inc. Makers of Dynamic Alloys

1562 Reynolds Ave., Irvine, CA 92614

Tel: 714 436-1206 Fax: 714 436-0511

[email protected] www.dynalloy.com

FLEXINOL®

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List of Materials:

1 - meter sample of .003" diameter Flexinol® Actuator Wire 90°C 1 - meter sample of .004" diameter Flexinol® Actuator Wire 70°C 1 - meter sample of .004" diameter Flexinol® Actuator Wire 90°C 1 - meter sample of .006" diameter Flexinol® Actuator Wire 70°C 1 - Animated Butterfly with A/C Adapter 1 - BendSoft™ for Miniature Animations 1 - Converted Push Button Switch 20 - Eyelets or Splices for Attaching FLEXINOL® Actuator Wire 1 - Flexinol® Sample Kit 1 - Grab bag of miscellaneous crimped Flexinol® wires 1 - Latch Box Concept Sample 1 - Rapid Discharge Circuit 2 - Small springs 1 - "Technical Characteristics of Flexinol® Actuator Wires" Paper 1 - 3 Volt Battery Pack (2 - D cells) 1 - Two Dimensional Advertisement with Battery test sheet You will also need batteries or your own 3 Volt power supply.

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Table of Contents Page 1. Useful Design Features 4 2. Basic Concepts 6 3. Instructions for Crimping Flexinol® Actuator Wire 11 4. Rapid Discharge Circuit 12 5. Converted Push Button Switch 13 6. Two Dimensional Display 17 7. Animated Butterfly 19 8. Micro Miniature Animations 20 9. Latch Box Concept Sample 21

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1. Useful Design Features

Perhaps the best place to start is with the beneficial features these wires offer. Several of them are listed below and some familiarity with them should help to know when and how to use them effectively. The key benefits are in bold print for easy scanning: 1. Saving Money - Perhaps the biggest motivation for using Flexinol® actuator wires is to save money. Used for tasks under 1 in-lb (Approximately 1 cm-kg) they are a small fraction of the cost when compared to motors and solenoids. Not only is the cost to build and install lower but power consumption is likely to be lower as well. This is a beneficial cost savings for both manufacturer and consumer. For larger tasks, where electromagnetics are more efficient, you may find other benefits are required to justify using Flexinol® wires. 2. Silent - Unlike motors, gears and cams, Flexinol® actuator wires are acoustically quiet. The wires themselves produce no grinding sounds, clicks, or ticking. Some oscillating power sources cause humming or vibration. They are also relatively quiet electrically. If you have been using solenoids, you may be aware that when a solenoid is "turned off", and its electromagnetic field collapses, this changing magnetic field generates a significant reverse electrical "spike" which can damage sensitive circuitry. Since Flexinol® actuator wires do not use electromagnetism to operate no such problem occurs. 3. Reliable - Used properly so the actuator wire is neither over stressed nor over heated, it will keep working for a long time. Many products have now been operating under continuous cycling 24 hours per day for years. The total number of cycles these products have run is now over 100,000,000 cycles! There is negligible indication of wear, deterioration, diminished stroke, or elongation. 4. Durable - Flexinol® actuator wire is not sensitive to changes in temperature, high humidity or exposure to direct sunlight. Highly corrosion resistant it can be used where other materials might corrode or fail, for example in the human body or in outer space. It operates indoors or outdoors and is safe and reliable, even in rain and snow. It is designed for continuous duty and requires no lubrication. 5. Space Saving - Flexinol® actuator wire is so small it takes almost no space at all. Comparisons to motors or solenoids yield enormous space savings of several thousand fold. In other words, motors and solenoids take thousands of times more space. Often products using Flexinol® actuator wires appear to move like magic, because the actuator wire is too small to be noticed. 6. Weight Savings - Flexinol® actuator wire is not only smaller but much lighter as well. Again, compared to the weight of small motors or solenoids doing the same tasks, these wires are thousands of times lighter.

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7. Smooth Movement - The molecular restructuring of Flexinol® actuator wire produces a smooth lifelike movement, often useful not only for the eye appeal in toys and novelties, but important to the functional characteristics of certain processes and devices. 8. Temperature Driven - Because the crystalline realignment takes places as a result of internal temperature changes, it also occurs with ambient temperature changes as well. For many products activation by heat alone is desirable. In others the option of both heat and/or electrical activation makes improved products. These features are particularly interesting in circuit protection where the wire acts very similar to the wires being protected. 9. Fast - In applications without frequent repetition the wire can be fired as quickly as it is heated. With electricity this can happen very fast. Applications that operate in .001 seconds can be reset and used again. For destructive uses speeds up to .000001 second can be addressed. 10. Forgiving Alignment - Due to its flexible muscle like movement these wires can be wrapped around and/or flexed around within a product sometimes bending as they operate. They do not require perfectly straight alignments and movements. This enables some very flexible designs which can even be woven into fabrics and used in creative new ways.

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2. Basics Concepts

Flexinol® actuator wire is a useful material for a variety of work. When low voltage electric currents are applied to Flexinol® actuator wire or fibers, they cause the material to contract - much like the fibers of a human muscle. When electric power is removed, the Flexinol® actuator wires relax. Like a muscle, this process can be repeated over and over but unlike a muscle, used properly, Flexinol® actuator wire will not fatigue, break down or fail from strain. Flexinol® wire is made from Nickel and Titanium (occasionally with other additives) and is not only corrosion resistant but for its size is stronger than steel. In order to take advantage of this material the essential thing is that you know how to use it properly. This is unlikely for new users so get help. In each application there are three fundamental areas where proper choices need to be made. For some reason new users tend to mistake one kind of problem for another. While a little discussion of each of them, each one has many contributing factors. You should not expect to have a competitive product without the assistance of Dynalloy support staff. Some of the confusion is a result of the interrelationship between various complex factors. Each of them affects the others and is in turn affected by them.

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Important Interplays when Designing with Flexinol® Actuator Wire

Material

1. Stable/repeatable 2. Flexinol® wire 3. Matched to task

Device

1. Strain reliefs 2. Not over stressed 3. Takes dynamics into account

Electrical

1. Enough power 2. Not too much power

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The first concern is getting the right material. This means not only a good quality wire like Flexinol® but also selecting the right diameter material and the right temperature. Although Flexinol® is chemically similar to Nitinol (the generic name for Nickel Titanium alloys), all Nitinol is not Flexinol®. The differences go way beyond the trade name. In short the differences can be summarized in two areas: 1. Flexinol® is very stable by comparison. The easy test for this is to cycle the wire with a weight hanging from it. Doing this will quickly show the differences. With a weight calculated to exert about 103 mPa (15000 psi) Nitinol will elongate and break in just a few cycles, almost immediately by comparison. Flexinol® on the other hand will continue to cycle many many times with no noticeable change in performance. 2. Flexinol® has been tested throughout its entire length, so each piece performs to specifications. Dynalloy, Inc.'s Flexinol® is more than just a wire. It is made to be a replacement for a myriad of solenoids and motors. It is treated and handled in that manner. Even with Flexinol® wires one must still be sure to select the right size and temperature. The temperature is easy. For industrial or appliance type applications you will want to use a 90° C wire or higher (available under special order and/or agreements). This takes a little more current than the 70° C material but is necessary to insure it cools sufficiently fast and that it does not prematurely contract. For toys and other products, where the ambient temperature is certain to be lower, the 70° C material will do fine. The diameter and length of wire depends upon the mechanical design. From it one can determine how much force and movement is needed. Although Flexinol® wires will contract 4% when new a good design will only demand 3.5% stroke. There are other dynamic factors involved, beyond the scope of this kit, that may enable more or less stroke under certain conditions. The general rule of thumb is to use a negative or reverse bias. This means enabling the wire to be pulling against a lowering force as it contracts. Using the wire in this way will permit more stroke and offer longer life than strong forward bias's do. Once you have enough of the device design to select the right wire then you can determine the current requirements. The technical materials can help determine the approximate current and/or voltage to use, but each use has its own thermodynamic peculiarities and needs to be finalized pragmatically. Dynalloy, Inc. can help with this. Basically enough current is needed to adequately heat the wire under the coldest expected conditions, but not overheat it in the hottest operating temperatures. The simplest rule of thumb to check overheating is to watch how long it takes to begin relaxing. At room temperature the wire should start relaxing in less than one second.

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Cycle Definition

In the graph above and throughout this manual we are defining a full cycle as

from when power is applied and cut to when power starts again. Above these are three specifications: 1) Flexinol® Contracting, 2) Flexinol® Relaxing, 3) Rest Interval. The rest interval is there for two main reasons; first to make certain that Flexinol® wire is fully relaxed and second, to help prevent overheating in the Flexinol®.

In the example above, the same pulse of power is being used in two different

ambient conditions. A pulse of power that raises the temperature of the Flexinol® on 150˚ is enough power to contract a 90˚ Flexinol® wire and not overheat it in a situation where the ambient temperature varies from minus 50˚ Celsius to 75˚ Celsius. Things like air flow and insulation play a major factor. Consideration of minimum and maximum ambient temperatures is essential in determining the amount of power to use.

0˚C

Temperature Windows

150˚C pulse of power to the Flexinol® at an ambient temperature of 75˚C raises the temperature of the Flexinol® wire from 75˚C to 225˚C

150˚C pulse of power to the Flexinol® at an ambient temperature of -50˚C raises the temperature of the Flexinol® wire from -50˚C to 100˚C

300˚C

250˚C

200˚C

150˚C

100˚C

50˚C

-50˚C

-100˚C

Too Hot

Marginal

Ok to Operate

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On the other hand, the available electrical arrangements may require that one start with a certain diameter of wire or length so that the impedances are properly matched. This may dictate which diameter or length wire to use and may in turn dictate the mechanical designs. There can be the chicken or the egg syndrome: which came first? Please feel free to contact Dynalloy personnel for advice on your particular product. To help the reader get a feel for how these decisions might be made, a few examples are given in this booklet. In association with each example are a few comments, which further explain those examples. Each example shows or demonstrates important concepts, techniques or methods of application, which may be useful to know. Please review them briefly before spending too much time reinventing the wheel. Later for additional information you may refer to the "Technical Characteristics of Flexinol® Actuator Wires" included in this kit for a more complete explanation of the way in which this wire operates and the technology behind it.


3. Instructions for Crimping Flexinol® Actuator Wire

Flexinol® wire needs to be firmly attached and electrically connected. Flexinol® actuator wire contracts with considerable force for its size and at the same time gets fatter (maintaining roughly the same volume). Unless some care is taken to attach it properly, it will either work its way free or simply slip out when operating. Solder does not stick well to Flexinol® and spot welding can damage it, one of the best ways to attach to Flexinol® is to use a crimp or splice. Crimping and/or splicing machines are readily available and Flexinol® actuator wire can be ordered with splices and terminals attached at fixed distances. However, for prototype work one may wish to crimp a few samples by hand with the crimps that come included in this kit. Here is how:


4. Rapid Discharge Circuit A piece of Flexinol® actuator wire can be quickly heated but not overheated with a capacitor discharge. By using a capacitor one can carefully measure the number of electrons or current to create enough heat but not too much. One must match the capacitor to the piece of actuator wire to be used. Capacitors hold more or less electrons based on the rating of the capacitor and the voltage. Here we show a 2200 micro farad capacitor (included with the kit) with a 9 volt battery. First, one charges the capacitor by connecting the batteries to the capacitor. Then one discharges the capacitor through the Flexinol® actuator wire by disconnecting the battery and connecting the wire to the capacitor. When moving this fast one must take care not to over stress the wire by moving objects too fast without taking the inertia effects into consideration. There are two good improvements to be made on this circuit for actual use. First, to permanently attach the battery to the capacitor through a resistor with enough resistance to permit adequate current to hold the Flexinol® actuator wire on. Or to charge the capacitor when the actuator wire is off, but not enough power to overheat it. The second improvement is to use a transistor and smaller capacitor to do the same thing. Such a circuit is a little smaller and costs less.


5. Converted Push Button Switch Once the mechanics and required force and distance of an application have been determined, one can match the length of wire to be used to the available voltage and/or power. For example you may choose to use 3 inches which will match one standard battery (1.5 volts) and proceed with a good match from the outset. This may not always be possible during the initial stages of development and exploration of the material. This device shows how easy and versatile Flexinol® wires can be to solve such a problem. A little wire added to a typical push button switch and you now have: A. A Simple Relay. B. An Electromechanical Oscillator. C. A Method of Insuring Flexinol® is not grossly overheated and ruined during testing

and design work. D. A Circuit Protection Device. A. A Simple Relay - The relay is created by stretching the Flexinol® actuator wire over the push button so that when activated it will physically push the switch button down. A current across the actuator wire can then close or open secondary switch contacts becoming a single pull, double throw relay.


B. An Electromechanical Oscillator - If the Flexinol® actuator wire is wired in series with the switch so that it turns itself off when power is applied you have an electromechanical oscillator. Once it is off, the wire will relax and the switch will turn on again. The process will continue repeating until power is disconnected altogether. The Flexinol® wire in this configuration never reaches full contraction because it always turns itself off before completely contracting. Note that the more voltage or power it has, the quicker it turns itself off but it still cools and relaxes at the same rate. Blowing on it so that it cools quicker will cycle it faster. This is a good way to get first hand experience watching the wire being heated and cooled. Another way to cool it quicker is to immerse the wire in oil or water. Of course, you will need to use a waterproof switch for that. An even simpler way to speed the cycle time is to use smaller gauge wire. The smaller diameter the wire, the more surface-to-mass ratio it has, the faster it will cool and reset. Smaller wires have less strength, but one can group or gang wires in parallel. Having one long thin wire with high resistance means lower amperes and higher voltage. Another interesting use for this oscillator is to test the Flexinol® wire's life. It should easily outlast the switch contacts. C. A Method of insuring Flexinol® is not grossly overheated and ruined during testing and design work - One of the first things to avoid is over heating and damaging the Flexinol® wires. This is an easy mistake to make because it takes only a small amount of voltage to supply too much current. For example it takes only about 0.5 volts per inch to operate in one second. Any more than this and you are likely to over heat it in a fairly short time. A good parallel would be to remember that applying a regular 1.5-volt battery to one inch of the wire is like applying 360 volts to an appliance designed for 120 volts. One might expect it to fail rather quickly. Even if the device does not fail immediately, hidden


damage is likely to occur. In Flexinol® this will most likely appear as reduced stroke, higher return force requirements and shortened cycle life. Life testing or almost any other kind of testing of the material once it has been damaged will be useless. Applying a 12-volt supply, formerly in use for a solenoid, would generate 24 times too much power (like putting 2640 volts on one’s 110 volt electric toothbrush) and will vaporize the wire, so please be careful. It is possible to use a 12 volt power supply directly with various methods like duty cycling (turning the power on and off under electronic control very quickly) but this requires some planning and preparation. Using the switch provided in your kit as an over current limiter is a much simpler way to get started. An easy way to do this is to leave the switch wired as an oscillator and put it in series with the wire you are testing. By putting a slightly larger wire in the switch than the one you are using in your fixture or working with you can allow enough current to flow through to the oscillator to the wire you are working with to activate it, and prevent gross overloads. One of the nice things about this arrangement is that you can even use fast heating methods and the switch will not engage unless the larger wire on it is overheated. It becomes like an adjustable circuit breaker.


D. A Circuit Protection Device - One difference is that circuit breakers made with conventional bimetals or solenoids are either too slow, as in the case of bimetals because they have 100-1000 times more mass to heat, or too fast, because they react to a magnetic field that may that may not permit high bursts even though they are short enough to be quite safe. This is another area of research you may wish to explore. The wire reacts to heat at molecular speeds, in other words it is very fast. This means one can do new things. For example, by using shunts that divide the current between the switch/oscillator/circuit breaker approaches with a double pull switch you can make a circuit breaker for large current applications. Or by using one in parallel with a device you can break the current if and when the resistance of the alternate device has gone up too much indicating it is getting too hot! Perhaps you may only wish to turn on a warning light when the alternate device is getting too hot. You can do this too.


6. Two Dimensional Display Although many of Dynalloy's customers have new and innovative products they do not want explained or shown to possible competitors in a kit like this, there are some that have given permission to be used in this kit. This "Two Dimensional" moving display mechanism is one. The customer sells it with a battery holder for two "D" cells, which are included. Dynalloy has added a little advertising/battery test addition to go with it, but please feel free to use it for what ever you would like. The product is used to make moving advertisements and can be used in various ways. You can use it with only one of the mounting wheels as a flat desk top piece and you can use it vertically with both front and back mounting wheels. It is quieter and flatter than the typical "point of purchase" moving advertisement and it incorporates a few interesting design ideas. First, it uses a constant current circuit, which maximizes battery life by compensating for the falling voltage of the batteries over time without much deterioration of the performance. Although, you may find that it is on too long at first and slowly spends less and less time in the "on" mode. At first, with new batteries, it turns on so long that advertisement seems to be operating backwards. That is to say, it looks like it is off when it is actually on. One interesting thing to do might be to mark the on and off positions and watch how or if they change over time. One function in this kit is to get the buyer an easy and simple method for doing a rough battery life test. Doing so with this display device should be self-explanatory. Second, it uses a simple strain relief so that the Flexinol® wire cannot be damaged by people who might hold the moving display piece so that it cannot move. When that happens the strain relief kicks in internally and nothing is over stressed. To see how it works, open it up. This can be done by drilling out the heat stakes in the four corners and two at the center. If you then open it carefully with the thicker half down you can remove the top without damaging it to see how it works.

Drill heat stakes from the bottom side, the one with the "Promotion f/x" logo. Then turn it over and carefully remove the top. You should then be able to see the inside workings.


Third, the levers are arranged in such a manner that a reverse bias results both on normal operation and when the strain relief kicks in. A reverse bias occurs when the Flexinol® actuator wire needs less force to pull against the return spring at the end of its stroke than it needed at the start of it. Reverse bias designs tend to provide longer wire life and higher stroke or movement.

Circuit Board Lever Arm

Return Spring Elastic

Flexinol® Actuator Wire Mounting Wheel Hole

Strain Relief Elastic

The mounting wheel is attached with a self threading screw

A table top battery life test as shown can be setup or one may use it in its horizontal

mode as a wall hanger


7. Animated Butterfly One of the most noticeable items in this Deluxe Kit is the Elegant Aliform™ butterfly. It was originally designed to show that something as small as a butterfly could be made to move and still be light enough to mount on live flowers. Over the years it has improved in appearance but its function is still the same. It moves about 10,000 times per day and some of them have been moving for 16 years now. That's about 60,000,000 cycles. Although sometimes through mistreatment of various kinds other failures can occur, when these butterflies do fail it is nearly always a result of the copper wires, carrying current to the Flexinol® wires, not being able to keep up with the flexing movement of the actuator wire. It does not have a strain relief, so if people hold it or place it in a position where it cannot move they will over stress the wire and this may lead to failure. By reducing the current so that it moves slowly and with barely enough current to operate a kind of strain relief is in place. When Flexinol® actuator wire encounters more stress (in this case by the butterfly not being able to move) its transition temperature rises. If the current is too low to force contraction under higher loads, the wire never tries to exert enough force to damage itself. Just plug the A/C adaptor into a 110-volt wall socket and plug the other end into the timing circuit holder. You can mount it by attaching the two leg wires to what ever you like. This item can be used as a give away to help marshal support for Flexinol® projects.


8. Micro Miniature Animations Flexinol® actuator wire can be used to make very small animated figures, holiday decorations, steerable catheters, soft grippers and other devices by careful use of silicone rubber or other flexible high temperature materials. The Deluxe Kit includes for demonstration of this technique a BendSoft™ Actuator. The BendSoft™ uses approximately 2 inches of .008" dia. 90°C Flexinol® wire. You can activate it by quickly touching the leads, coming from it, on for 1-1.5 seconds, at a time, with a 1 or a 2 volts power supply or battery. Alternatively, you may wish to connect it to the Timing Circuit or the "D" battery pack. Both of them are included in the Deluxe Kit. The Bendsoft™ works by allowing the Flexinol® actuator wire to contract along one side of a non-compressing strip of plastic. This forces the plastic to bend in order to accommodate the new changes in length. The amount of bend is determined by how close the wire is to the plastic, the flexibility of the plastic and how long the actuator wire is. In this example the Flexinol® is held against the plastic with cross-stitched thread. Below is a drawing of how a BendSoft™ could be in bedded in a silicone dinosaur for animation. With the actuator located through the neck of the dinosaur, when the power is applied the Dinosaur would move its head like it is alive.


9. Latch Box Concept Sample Naturally, one of the best uses for Flexinol® actuator wires is in electronic locks. For those interested in smaller but stronger alternatives to solenoids, in locks. Over 10-20 million latches that used our wire last year are just a start. Dynalloy's expertise will be essential in making cost effective and state of the art designs. Our active involvement in both product design and assembly methods has been an important ingredient in every viable product, perhaps more important than the wire or the technology itself! So, to better help you see what we are talking about, we are also including a simple, easy to look at sample of one way it can be used to open a latch. This sample was made to fit 14 specific design goals, so it is not likely to immediately fit your needs. Still it does show some interesting things, like low voltage (1.5 volts), low installed cost (under $0.20), and small size. This box latches when closed and is opened electrically with the accompanying “key”. Electricity from the “key” causes tiny Flexinol® wires to contract opening the release and freeing the lid. The white latch mechanism itself is quite small and fits in the end of the box. The actuator wire is the small black wire visible on the end. Various sizes and shapes are made to order.


Documents

Deluxe Kit Manual F1177Rev E.2 - 3dcartstores.comstore-musclewires-com.3dcartstores.com/assets/images... · 2017-02-02 · Deluxe Kit This kit is designed to introduce those interested